Strike Season (Mania.com)

By:Robert T. Trate, Columnist Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The strike is over. TV will continue. Well, most of it anyway. Okay, so it isn’t all roses but some shows will return with a slight break and then squeeze out a few more episodes and then be back in the fall. Hopefully. So I started looking ahead. It’s my nature. Just the other day Tim Janson, fellow Maniac and DVD columnist, and I were already discussing the DVD fall releases. I think I already laid the ground work for a fight over a title but, rest assured Maniacs, we’ll get the job done*. As we were discussing the fall schedule I suddenly thought about this season of TV and the titles that would be coming out. More importantly I thought about the price. What does 13 episodes of “Lost” cost? How many discs will it take for 13 episodes? Well, with Blu-Ray it should be only one, but it seems that they have this thing where the more discs it is the more expensive it has to be. So figure 6 discs at two episodes per disc, and 1 episode by itself with added bonus features.

“Heroes” did a whopping 11 episodes before they were done. So what do you think the good people and NBC/ Universal will give us with that season two box set? A ton of extras, an action figure exclusive (an in the coffin Takezo Kensei would be cool), a comic book? Would that get you to pay $49.95? I hope not. There will be people who will still buy it with nothing but 11 bare bone episodes at that price.

In my perfect world we would mail in our “Lost” and “Heroes” box set proof of purchases from previous season(s) and get these mini seasons for free. Why not? Don’t we deserve it? Aren’t we the ones getting swindled in the long run? What, you don’t believe the crazy man with column? The original season of “the Office” initially cost $29.99. It still costs $19.99. The total number of episodes on disk: (drum roll, please) 6. Everyone wants to recoup their losses. The studios have a bit of a drought coming up and the writers are finally going to get what they should have been getting all along. Are you ready to pay more for less?

My plan, your plan, our plan should be to hold out and get these “strike seasons” in bundle packs with the following season. It will be the only way to get the most for your hard earned dollar. By then we might be finally disappointed by “Heroes” or had it with “Lost”. You won’t have wasted your money on buying an expensive “strike season” and saved that valuable shelf space.

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